


Never Quite Like This

by wardo_wedidit



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boy Band, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 08:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wardo_wedidit/pseuds/wardo_wedidit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Facebook is a boy band who makes music critics love and teenage girls go crazy for, and Mark and Eduardo's genius is the band's linchpin.  But there is so much to them behind closed doors, and Chris gets a front row seat to it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Quite Like This

**Author's Note:**

> So I went to see Paul McCartney in D.C., and a friend and I listened to an audiobook of his biography most of the way up and god, I couldn't stop seeing parallels in his relationship with John Lennon to the Mark/Eduardo relationship. And then this happened. (Also, just as a point of interest, I envision Facebook's sound in the story as like a mix of Brand New and The Killers, but with the mania of The Beatles or, currently, One Direction.)
> 
> Title from my third favorite Beatles song, [I've Just Seen a Face](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J54Iec7QnxQ). Seeing Paul perform it was like a religious experience. :)

It is easy enough for Chris and Dustin to answer questions about Mark and Eduardo to teen magazines, who just want to know about the girls they are (or, in reality, aren’t) sleeping with, what their dream dates would be like, about their favorite books or songs or whatever. Fictions are easily composed, especially when it is so easy to make up exactly what everyone wants to hear. 

The more difficult part comes with the serious magazines, who want to know what they’re like when the cameras are off. Because how much do you say that is truthful, how much to maintain their image, how much to protect their privacy? It’s a tough line to walk. 

Chris is mostly kidding when he elbows them both and says that they should appreciate him and Dustin more, for covering up for them and the crazy antics that often steal the spotlight when it shines too close. For the times the headlines read _Chris and Dustin of Facebook party till dawn!_ instead of wondering where Mark and Eduardo are. But there is a kernel of truth there, and they all know it. So Mark will shoot him a knowing nod, and Eduardo will blush and duck his head, and then Dustin will inevitably pull them all into a cramped, enthusiastic hug to get everyone laughing and then everything will swing back into place. 

Sometimes he thinks about what he would hypothetically say to a biographer, after everything dies down. After the girls stop screaming and chasing and flashing their cell phones, after the cameras stop tracking their every move, after the concert halls stop selling out and the singles stop climbing the charts. Maybe after he settles down with a nice guy and Dustin finally falls in love that can last longer than three weeks. After Mark and Eduardo sneak out of the public eye, maybe buy a quiet little house that is tucked away in the French or Italian countryside and shake off the questions like _you look like those boys from that band--Facebook!_ with a chuckle and _I get that a lot_. 

Or, alternatively, after everything crashes and burns with the same inexplicable and uncharted suddenness as it all began. 

Chris doesn’t know which is more likely, but he doesn’t like the contemplate that second one. 

Anyway, if he could be totally, completely truthful with people about the four of them, he would. He knows exactly what he would say. Because it is truly an amazing, amazing thing. He has never seen anything like it, and he is sure he will never see it again. 

He has seen the two of them sit cross-legged on the floor across from each other hundreds of times, knees touching and noses practically together. Eduardo will scribble something out on the piece of paper they are both crouched over, lip caught between his teeth, brow furrowed. He’s offering Mark the pencil before he can even reach for it, and their fingers brush just slightly in the transfer. He’s erasing a note or a lyric and replacing it with something else, and Eduardo is nodding before it’s even completed. It’s a completely silent process, like they’ve moved beyond verbal communication. Now they communicate with breaths, with heartbeats. 

Then there is the way that they perform on stage, the way that Mark will change a sweet, romantic lyric to a comical one, or something with more shock value for the shrieking audience’s delight. But nothing will ever match the way Eduardo has to step back from the microphone to throw his head back and laugh, igniting Mark’s dimpled smile. 

On their (very few) days off, Mark likes to trade in their trademark skinny jeans and tight t-shirts for loose, ill-fitting jeans and the most threadbare t-shirt he has in his drawer, both of which make Eduardo roll his eyes in the most fond way. Not to mention Eduardo’s chosen attire for these days, which consist usually of sweats and one of Mark’s old hoodies, the sleeves falling just a bit too long on his arms so that he can curl his fingers around the edge of the fuzzy, faded red fabric. He and Dustin try to spend their time not noticing the way it makes Mark’s eyes grow darker but also soft, somehow. 

There are the long bus rides, when Eduardo will fold his legs up into his lap on a seat and pick absent-mindedly at the guitar strings, light and summery, speaking volumes of the long hot days of his Brazilian childhood. He gets so wrapped up in it, notes spinning together in a way that will later become reincarnated into a new song (a jumble of notes and lyrics under those same words: _A Zuckerberg-Saverin Original_ ), or maybe just the half-remembered melody of a far-off memory. But Mark looks at him with fiercely intense eyes, tracking everywhere like he wants to know everything about Eduardo, consume his very being so that they can be this one _whole_ thing. He is absolutely entranced until Eduardo looks up at him with an easy smile to snap him out of it. It is one of the only times Mark is truly still or quiet. 

Of course, there are the things that Chris chooses not to think about, because if the wrong people ever found out it would probably shake everything up in such a way that it could never be put back right again. The fact that when four bedrooms are booked, clearly only three are used. How, in their early days, they could disappear for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, and then emerge with a giggly giddiness, wandering hands and blushing cheeks. 

Chris obviously has nothing against it, being, you know, a single, openly gay member of a boy band. But Mark and Eduardo do not want the world to know--as long as this thing has been alive, they’ve insisted they want to keep it private. Which he completely understands, and to some degree supports. There are still enough articles about how he is polluting the minds of the world’s youth to make him see the sense behind the decision, while at the same time be completely at peace with his own. He cannot _imagine_ the public outcry that would happen if it came out that three-quarters of the band were gay, and furthermore, that two of them were dating _each other_. 

But they are not nobodies anymore, and he just wishes that if they still want their relationship to remain a secret, they would really _act_ like it. In theory, the only people who know about Mark and Eduardo are Chris and Dustin, their manager Peter Thiel, and their publicist Sean Parker. Really though, Chris doesn’t understand how that can be possible, what with the legion of housekeeping staff who have literally had to wash their dirty laundry through many a tour. It just seems so careless, so incredibly _naive._ There are times he wishes he could scream at them--and not just because of the whole privacy issue. 

Every once in a while, they will mash each other’s buttons _just_ _right_ and get in a screaming match, on anything from the setlist to the next show to something the other one said to a reporter. It’s never in public, only in front of Chris or Dustin or both, and they never last long, just short bursts and flares of frustration. Honestly, it’s probably an understandable result of being together 24/7 for every performance, every bus ride or plane flight, every press conference, every songwriting or recording session, and every possible night. There is bound to be tension at spending that much time together, from rubbing up against each other’s nerves with no possible alternative. Chris thinks that’s maybe the reason they tried to survive without this for so long, because there was always _the band_ and then _them_ , and this was an inevitable result of mixing the two. 

Somehow they always manage to work it out--or at least, they have been able to so far. Eduardo will take a deep breath and lower his voice, letting Mark get out all his bluster and anger until his chest is heaving with it, exhausted, stepping forward and hiding his face in Eduardo’s neck, intimate. Then they will retreat to somewhere more private to talk it out in hushed, calm, reasonable tones with open minds. When they emerge, Eduardo has an arm around Mark, who is turned into Eduardo’s chest, clutching at his shirt with eyes closed while Eduardo kisses his head and runs a thumb comfortingly down the line of Mark’s neck.

It just makes Chris nervous... like seeing your parents have an explosive fight but not getting a chance to see the resolution, just waking up and sensing that somehow it was fixed but getting no notion of closure from it all. 

The worst of it is, it’s never about the two of them: always about the _band_ \--their look or the image they’re projecting or the music. And these are the type of things that break up a group, without a doubt, but that’s not even what worries him. It’s the fact that, very possibly, Mark and Eduardo could make it work in a normal world where they were not teen heartthrobs who make surprisingly acclaimed rock music. Maybe if there was no type of project to hold them together, no band to force things, they could love easily. Maybe in another world. 

These are the reasons why the crash-and-burn type of future seems like it could be realized. 

Chris thinks it’s inevitable that, _if_ Facebook breaks up, Mark and Eduardo will be at the center of it. In so many ways, they are the heart and soul of the band. 

Not to belittle himself and Dustin--he knows that they wouldn’t work if any one of them was missing, the four of them work flawlessly together like the cogs of a well-oiled machine, and taking away any one member would be like losing a limb to them. But in so many ways, Mark and Eduardo are the ones who got this whole thing started, brought everyone together, and made it what it is today (whatever it is). They are the _drive_ , they are the engine that makes the wheels turn, that makes them all synchronize in flawless harmony. 

That’s why, no matter what, they’ve never been able to separate this thing into “good times” and “bad times”. Chris doubts that they ever will, even if the worst happens. It’s more like a rollercoaster: a high valley before a dangerously low dip, and then climbing up again with all the power of before, unafraid despite not knowing what lies ahead on the other side. The good and the bad, the easy and the difficult are so tightly intertwined that it’s impossible to untangle them. For every fight Mark and Eduardo have, there are late night whispers of love in hotel beds, for every time Dustin and Chris have to lie about them or do something to distract the press there is an appreciative hug from Eduardo, a compliment from Mark (and he’s always completely honest, so not only are those hard to come by, but also dearly treasured). 

Maybe most of all there are the songs they create together, and Chris is sure that regardless of the way this ends, that is the legacy they will leave. Because not only have they made teenage girls scream and faint and many a critic eat their skeptical words, but each song impacts the band pound for pound, at least. Each note, each lyric _means_ something to them... a memory or a collaboration, a brave guess in the dark or a simple touch. If he had to boil it all down to one thing it all meant, he’d pick trust: the trust they have in each other for honesty, for commitment, for _love_. To be there to pick each other up, not just in terms of botched notes or mis-sung lyrics but for the tears, exhaustion, and incredulity of it all. They’re the only ones inside this whirlwind; they are the only ones who can ever truly understand just how incredibly challenging and new each moment is. 

The past inevitably holds a certain shine for them, now, before everything blew up. It’s hard to remember--can sometimes come back with the fuzziness of a badly tuned radio station, obscured by static--but it feels golden, now. That time when the four of them laughed and talked and sang and played without so much as a glimpse of the future, of the mania that was in store. 

At the end of the day, though, Chris is glad that they’re here. If there were ever any two people who could make this work, it is Mark and Eduardo. They are mirror images, opposite but the same. 

There is the way Eduardo smoothes down Mark’s rough edges, most notably in public but in private too, able to bring Mark back to himself when the world is just too much, too overwhelming. It mirrors how he can take the harsh, uncompromising, revolutionary bravery of Mark’s rough drafts of songs and turn them into something that romances you, a sneaky seduction that has you on the hook before you know it. But Mark can also make Eduardo stronger, more willing to stand up and fight for the things that matter, no longer the timid doormat he once was. 

They are so conscious of each other, so caring, in hidden public moments and in private. When they walk anywhere and Eduardo will lead Mark with a hand on the small of his back, natural and innocent as anything, something only Chris and Dustin ever notice. Mark will send Eduardo a thankful smile in response, an easy give-and-take. Sometimes Mark will spent all day poring over a song and just can't see straight anymore, so Eduardo will coax him to bed with hushed words and light kisses, getting Mark ready and then slipping between the covers himself, still fully dressed, to rub his fingers soothingly over Mark's temples and hum one of his favorite songs (not one of theirs but one of Mark's inspirations, his musical idols). 

With Mark, it is the way he will hold Eduardo close after Eduardo’s father calls (still not understanding what it is they’re doing or why it’s important to his son, still disappointed, still waiting for him to come back and be a businessman). Chris swears Mark wraps himself around Eduardo so tight it’s like he’s trying to crawl inside, and Eduardo will grip onto Mark’s arm across his chest like he’s holding on for dear life, swallowing hard and blinking away tears, the most heartbreakingly resigned expression on his face. It’s how, even though Mark _hates_ the clothes they wear and would prefer to wear the most tragically loosely tailored jeans and hoodies so old they’re falling apart, he wears the skinny jeans and v-necks for shows for Eduardo, thrilling in the way Eduardo will blush when he sees Mark like that, visibly preening. Mark will sling his guitar over one shoulder and bite down on a grin while Eduardo ducks his head and pretend to rifle through the setlist. The way that, right before a show, Mark will pull Eduardo behind the curtains and reach up on his toes, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth, pulling away with a reassuring smile. Eduardo will exhale slowly and smile back, squeezing Mark’s hands between his own, and Chris can see every inch of self-consciousness and nervousness that colored Eduardo before just melt away. 

In those moments, Chris can see their future. Two people who used to be famous living a normal life, tucked away in some tiny little town. Spending their mornings together at a kitchen table in comfortable quiet, reading the paper, and cooking their meals together in the evenings, hip-to-hip at the stove, laughter dancing in their eyes and their voices. Falling into bed next to each other at night, waking up in the morning side-by-side and doing it all over again. He fervently hopes they’ll have that future one day, and he doubts they know how much. 

Because as good as they are for each other, this world they’re in can turn the most pure things sour. Even the magical, seemingly psychic connection they share at times can’t change the fact that they don’t live normal lives--they are subjected to stresses and issues that few people can truly understand. They have so much going against them. 

“Wardo?” Mark calls back in the present, pausing at the end of their golden-lit hotel hallway, turning to face the stairwell. Beyond him the skyline is visible in the window at the end of the hall, lights twinkling despite the late hour, and Chris vaguely wonders if it’s always this bright at four in the morning, wishes that most people out there are treasuring their sleep since _he’s_ certainly not getting any. Tomorrow, another line will wrap around another stadium, another set of screaming girls in the front row, another city clamoring for Facebook to perform. 

“Coming,” Eduardo replies, rubbing a hand over his face and slinging a bag over his shoulder at the other end of the hall, every line of his body slouched with exhaustion. As he walks up Mark reaches out, offering his hand, and Eduardo takes it, tangling their fingers together. Chris sees Mark squeeze their fingers together, such a small, intimate gesture that says so much. 

Dustin yawns, finally getting the opposite hotel room door open and muttering, “I miss _real_ keys,” fiddling with the plastic keycard between his fingers. Chris tears his eyes away from Mark and Eduardo, chuckling, and pats Dustin on the back, following him into their room with two parallel double beds. 

He doesn’t see Mark and Eduardo head into their own and his thoughts turn elsewhere, but no matter how much time passes he can’t help but wondering where the two of them will end up. 

Fireworks or explosions. Magic or mystery. Happy ending or heartbreak. 

He hopes, _hopes_ with everything he has, that they will end up a love song.


End file.
